Contact: Laura Rivas Kaufmann (yurivas at me.com / @laurarivask)

Website design: Isabella Furler / Laura Rivas Kaufmann

Code website: Jonas Huber

The establishment of the image-based social media platform Instagram has led to global visibility and networking of the previously marginalized subculture of women's soccer. While fan culture in men's soccer is characterized by homogeneity, women's soccer offers space for the performativity of different identities. The lack of tradition opens up scope for action and design for a new visual culture.

This master's thesis by Laura Rivas Kaufmann in Trends&Identity (MA Design/ Zurich University of the Arts) addresses the question of how the plurality of identities in the visual women's soccer fan culture can be categorized on the basis of self-produced and externally produced images. Using visual ethnography, this thesis analyzes Instagram posts of the women's soccer subculture from the majority Anglo-Saxon and German-speaking countries. The elicited typologies of digital identities serve as the basis for the brand identity, positioning and development of the first collection of a lifestyle brand field in women's soccer, which will be available via crowdfunding from June 14, 2023 (feminist strike day).

The core of my research process, besides the thematic clustering of Instagram feed posts, is the visual-ethnographic categorization of the different subgroups in women's soccer (fan) culture. I saw my task as an expert in the field as bringing a possible kind of order to a vast field whose plurality the term "women's soccer (fan) culture" cannot do justice to. Breaking it down to four typologies of fans is a strong simplification and focuses on Anglo-Saxon and German-speaking countries. However, this simplification is intended to serve as a basis for discussion for the Commmunity in addition to analysis in relation to the marketing of my own collection. It is intended to raise awareness of the meta-level view and to help the various actors locate and position themselves in the field.

Through the photo series of fans at major sporting events of women's soccer, I show the important aspect that it is a subculture that operates in the online and offline world. Capturing the plurality within the community should also raise awareness among fans of being part of a larger subculture. To anyone outside the community, the images provide a glimpse into a subculture that otherwise often operates outside the mainstream.

Because fan culture is often perceived as a mass phenomenon, I took a closer look and specifically approached and photographed people. At large events with 30,000 to 90,000 visitors from different countries, local phenomena lose their weight. Large events are also exciting in that they attract long-time fans, but also attract a new audience that is not part of the subculture.